£16 million development finance for student accommodation schemes

We provided a 24 month, £16 million senior financing facility to Ankor Property, for the development of two Grade-A London schemes, in Ealing and Greenwich, available to students for the start of the 2017/18 academic year.

In Ealing, the scheme comprises of 124 bed spaces, arranged over four floors, in a combination of self-contained studio and twin bedrooms. Just a short walk from the University of West London and well–served by Ealing’s excellent tube and train links, the scheme has been designed to a high specification and will be operated by Homes for Students, one of the UK’s most established operators.

The Greenwich scheme comprises 33 self-contained and fully-furnished en-suite studio apartments, completed to a high specification including integrated kitchen, high speed internet and wall-mounted flat screen smart televisions. Situated on Denham Street, the property benefits from its close proximity to Greenwich Docklands Light Railway and North Greenwich Tube, which provide fast access to several central London University campuses.

Nori Touati, Manging Director at Ankor Property, said:

“Greenwich and Ealing represent our first two completed student accommodation developments, and we are excited to be delivering them in time for the start of the 2017/18 academic year, with the support of the Octopus team throughout the process invaluable in helping us achieve this.

We have a number of other projects in the pipeline at various stages of the development process as we focus on becoming one of UK’s most forward thinking and highly trusted property developer.”

According to recent data(1), London has 376,000 students, of which 278,000 are full time. This equates to 4.19 students per purpose built bedspace with 82,000 students in the target market without access to PBSA.

1) Source: London Student Market Analysis and JLL Market Report

The student accommodation sector remains one of the most attractive asset classes for investors, with London in particular continuing to see a requirement for brand-new purpose-built space, driven in part by the high concentration of globally renowned further education institutions within close proximity of each other. It’s a sector that we like, and as long as the favourable supply demand dynamics remain in place for this type of innovative and high specification accommodation, we will continue to back schemes that require bespoke and efficient financing facilities.